


She Alone

by captainangua



Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Canonical Character Death, F/F, F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-14
Updated: 2016-06-14
Packaged: 2018-07-14 23:09:22
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,252
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7194674
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/captainangua/pseuds/captainangua
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Love doesn’t have to make sense.”</p><p>No, no it didn’t. Faith knew something about that.</p>
            </blockquote>





	She Alone

**Author's Note:**

> It just... it would have made more SENSE if Faith had been brought back for season 5 instead of 7, right?  
> Right.

“What makes her different?” Faith asked him one night, her arm splayed over his bare chest. Most guys she was wary of seeming too touchy with after the event for fear of encouraging anything resembling intimacy, but with Spike there were none of those fears. Sometimes, even when they were in the middle of things, she wondered if he even really registered she was there. Or, that she was anything more than another damn robot.

“What?”

Ah, he was noticing now.

Faith withdrew her arm and propped herself up on her side, facing him. “What made Buffy different to me? This isn’t just you getting some kinda screwed up death kick outta mooning after slayers, because hey, look at us now.”

He narrowed his eyes at her, and for a moment Faith almost convinced herself his forehead was changing shape, she was waiting for him to spring, for the fight – but none came.

“Love doesn’t have to make sense.”

No, no it didn’t. Faith knew something about that.

When they’d told her that a goddess in more desperate need of a psychiatrist than Faith was trying to destroy the world, and had it out for Buffy especially, Faith hadn’t hesitated in checking herself out of jail. Buffy apparently needed her, and what was Faith if not a mad faithful dog still seeking some affection?

But while Faith might not have changed, Buffy had. She’d gotten worn down by a world which had taken her mother away from her, and her golden boy, and left her with a fake sister and a fight that even two slayers would not be able to win.

Dawn had asked Faith, in that clipped and solemn voice she reserved for addressing Faith, if there’d ever been anything between her and Buffy ‘like Willow and Tara’.

Faith hugged at one knee absently from her careful position at the other side of the couch from the girl. “Nah, Dawnie. We were never that.”

But the kid’s eyes, so like her sister’s that Faith wanted to shake her, narrowed like she wasn’t sure she believed her. Which was fair – Faith wasn’t so sure herself anymore. She felt so alone being back in Sunnydale, surrounded daily by people who knew her name and even to some extent cared about her than she ever had in her life that when she went out on Patrol she never wanted to come back (not that she wanted to die – just that she didn’t want the fight to have to end) so maybe she wanted to focus on remembering all those little looks she’d gotten from Buffy over those few desperate months waging war against a god. Because in Faith’s memory they now had everything of that naked closeness she knew she’d never have to fear growing with Spike as they smashed their bodies together every night – hating each other, hating themselves for not being able to save her.

“Every night I save her,” Spike had told her one night, assumedly meaning something poetic about his dreams. Faith didn’t have that kind of hope in her. Every night she watched it all happen again in slow motion – the way Buffy looked back at her for just a split second. And again, Faith wasn’t even certain that it had really happened, but Buffy always looked at her a bit longer than she should have, her eyes almost teasing, challenging, even as Dawn sobbed beside her. Almost like she was saying, _you wanted my life? Here, give it a try._

And Faith was sure it was less out of any kind of loyalty and a hell of a lot more about stubbornly still trying to beat Buffy’s game that she’d ended up staying, feeling like the less loved replacement to that fucking robot.

Well, they did talk to her. She probably talked to Anya the most. The former demon was strange but she said what she was thinking, and there was an honest viciousness in that which Faith appreciated, and she had a feeling Anya liked her for having a ‘friend’ that was more her own than her boyfriend’s. She’d given Faith a few jobs around the shop, and a few more unofficial ones they didn’t talk to Giles about, of using slaying as an opportunity to _acquire_ the items for sale. But they didn’t need to worry about hiding much – because Giles wasn’t noticing much these days.

Faith wanted to be able to talk to Giles, but that wasn’t right either. She wanted to talk to Giles if he cared for her in anything like the same way he had for Buffy. But since she was surprised when he even registered her being there, and when he did it usually only ended up hurting them both, talking was probably a bad idea. Sometimes she’d catch him looking at her with hurt in his eyes, like he was expecting to see Buffy standing in her place. But then he’d tell her ‘good job’ and she’d be five years old again, chest swelling up at the praise.

But those moments were rare. He never came to watch her training. She’d found his plane tickets but she didn’t say anything, and wasn’t sure who she could say it to.

Of all the people in the strange little household she lived in, Tara probably spoke most to her, but she was just so damn _nice_ it made Faith uncomfortable. Things could be ok with Dawn, but were usually strained with Willow. Turned out people tended to hold grudges over things like kidnap, and Faith had a tendency to make jokes instead of apologising, so things stayed strained.

She spoke to the Buffbot though. She talked to that thing about _everything,_ even screamed at it a few times, calling Buffy a hypocrite, a quitter, the most beautiful person Faith had ever known, the only real light she’d ever had in her life –

But only when the ‘bot was off. She didn’t have the courage to say anything real to those green eyes she loved and hated so much, even if they weren’t real.

She was trying to find Willow to get her to fix the thing again when she climbed up through Xander’s window, hoping to give them a fright, and that’s when she first heard about their plan. They were afraid her B was in some kind of hell – and of all the versions she’d imagined of Buffy’s afterlife this hadn’t been one of them. That wasn’t right – and they obviously thought so too.

But she could hear the less noble sentiments dripping off all those words they weren’t saying: they wanted Buffy back because they missed her, because they felt they _needed_ her.

“I’m not enough, am I?” Faith said, when she stopped waiting and listening and walked in on them, arms folded.

 “Faith-” Tara started, but even she wasn’t trying to correct her.

Faith had wondered what would happen if Buffy’s death had kick-started some other girl’s career, what Faith would say to her if she ever came to Sunnydale. If Faith would want to stay to meet her. She hadn’t wondered this, hadn’t dared to, but she had wondered how the others would react to a fresher-faced replacement.

“Yeah,” Faith said, with a nod. “I get it.” Then she pulled up a chair beside them, loudly, and sat backward on it. “What do you still need for this?”

_You’re tired of the stand-in and want your old model back? Hey, the name’s Faith, how can I help?_

**Author's Note:**

> I have never tried writing anything for Buffy before, so here's hoping it seems anything like ok...


End file.
